Devanath wins graduate student assembly election

When most students were still in bed Saturday morning, PJ Dillon was calling some of his… When most students were still in bed Saturday morning, PJ Dillon was calling some of his fellow graduate students.

For some, the early morning call brought good news. They had won a place on the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly’s Executive Board. For others, it brought some disappointment.

Dillon, the assembly’s current vice president of communications, arrived in the GPSA office on the eighth floor of the William Pitt Union shortly before 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

He also called The Pitt News, conferencing us in on his calls to the candidates for GPSA elections, which ended at 11:59 p.m. Friday. His calls are part of a yearly ritual in which the outgoing GPSA members try to call the candidates before posting the election results online, where all students can see them.

“I try not to think about it,” Dillon said of his role in the calls. “I guess that maybe I’m crushing some people’s expectations and then exciting other people. I think that’s just what I have to do.”

Dillon’s first call was to Nila Devanath, an undergraduate senior and former Student Government Board member who plans to attend Pitt’s School of Medicine next year.

“You know why I’m calling,” Dillon said. “I’m saying congratulations. You are our new GPSA president.”

Devanath gasped for a moment. “Oh my God, that’s awesome. Thank you,” she said.

The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly is in charge of administering half of the graduate and professional students’ activity fee to provide programs for graduate and professional students, much like Student Government Board oversees the undergraduate students’ activities fee. The president oversees the vice presidents and serves as a student representative, delivering reports to the University Senate and setting the agenda for the year.

Devanath received 273 votes, whereas Dustin McDaniel, a student in the law school and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, received 159 and candidate Joseph Pleso, who is studying math in the School of Arts and Sciences, received 53. About 600 students voted in the election, which was open to about 10,000 graduate and professional students. This turnout is similar to last year’s.

Within 20 minutes of Dillon’s phone call, Devanath’s Facebook status read, “can’t wait to get started learning the ropes of GPSA.”

A day later, McDaniel and Pleso were asking current GPSA members to clarify the assembly’s bylaws, asking whether Devanath was truly eligible to run for the presidency because she is still an undergraduate student.

Looking at the bylaws

The bylaws say that any graduate or professional student who files a position statement with the assembly by the required deadline may run for office. They define graduate and professional students as those who are “currently enrolled in a graduate-level program and paying the graduate student activity fee.”

“What I want to find out,” McDaniel said, “is what the thinking about this is, whether it fell through the cracks or whether I’m missing something. It appears to me as though the GPSA bylaws would make Ms. Devanath’s candidacy void, but I’m not sure about that.”

David Givens, who heads the assembly’s elections committee, said the elections committee met in January, before it had candidates, to discuss its bylaws. After consulting with the Provost’s Office, the committee ruled that students who were undergraduates but would be graduate students during their terms could run for GPSA election.

“We wanted as many people who to be legally allowed to run as were able to,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we weren’t bending the rules, but at the same time we didn’t want to prohibit candidates that would be good for GPSA who would like to run.”

He said the committee confirmed Devanath’s acceptance into medical school. He said also said that when the elections committee reviewed its bylaws, it learned that in 2003, two undergraduate students who were preparing to attend Pitt’s graduate schools ran for office.

“There weren’t any concerns or barriers earlier,” he said.

Givens said he thinks the elections committee will try to meet with McDaniel and Pleso in person to discuss their concerns.

McDaniel said he waited until after the elections to raise questions about Devanath’s candidacy because, “I wasn’t really aware of what was going on. People who were supporting my candidacy started saying things about it, and I started looking into it more. It started in the middle of last week, but I didn’t look too closely at it until the elections came through.”

Devanath said she wasn’t surprised that the other candidates were questioning her eligibility.

“Going through two SGB elections has prepared me for this,” she said.

She said she “did not try to hide” the fact that she is an undergraduate. “If something does come up and I’m not eligible, it’s fine. I get to concentrate on med school,” she said.

As of Saturday morning Dillon had no idea this controversy would occur. His largest problem with the elections was trying to get in touch with the candidates.

The wake-up calls

When he finished his call to Devanath, he called Melanie Rodrigues, who attends Pitt’s medical school. Rodrigues ran unopposed for vice president of committees, who is responsible for managing the graduate students’ representation on external groups, such as the University Senate and Board of Trustees.

“This is a formality, I guess,” Dillon said.

Rodrigues didn’t pick up.

Dillon moved on.

“Next is Qing Hu, who won vice president of communications,” Dillon said. “I’ll have to send her an e-mail. I don’t have her phone number.”

Hu, a student in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, ran for vice president of both communications and finance. Hu competed for vice president of communications against Dazun Xing, a student in the Graduate School of Engineering who ran for the position against Dillon last year. Hu received 250 votes for vice president of communications and 25 for vice president of finance.

Dillon decided to call Steve Ruperto, a student in the Katz Graduate School of Business, next. Ruperto won vice president of finance with 234 votes. His competitors were Hu; Brandon Mendoza, a student in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, 103 votes; Hassan Takabi, a student in the Graduate School of Information Science, 80 votes; and Xiong Zhang, a student in the medical school, who received 144 votes.

Ruperto didn’t pick up his phone.

“Maybe I’m waking them up, and they’ll pick up their phones if I call again,” he said.

Dillon tried calling Rodrigues. She didn’t answer.

“Well, this is fun,” he said.

Next, he tried calling McDaniel, who ran for president and didn’t win. McDaniel didn’t answer.

“Oh man, this is just not the time to be calling people,” Dillon said.

He moved on to Pleso, who also ran for president and didn’t get elected.

“OK, this is weird,” Dillon said. “This is Google Voice. Anyone there?”

Just The Pitt News.

“I have to see how to hang up,” Dillon said.

Dillon prepared to call Xing next.

“Incidentally, he lost to me last year so this is like,” but he didn’t finish his sentence.

Xing broke the trend and answered his phone.

“Unfortunately, you weren’t elected for vice president of communications,” Dillon said.

“OK, that’s fine. OK, so that’s fine,” Xing said.

“I kind of knew it because I didn’t campaign so hard,” Xing said. “I did send out some e-mails, but I didn’t think I did as good as my competitor.”

He said he probably wouldn’t change anything.

Dillon told Xing, “We really do need people to be involved in GPSA, so we really would like you to consider sticking around on a committee or being your school’s representative.”

He would say the same thing to all of the candidates who lost in the elections.

Dillon was relieved to finally get someone on the phone. “Finally got one,” he said excitedly.

He paused “Oh, somebody’s calling me, and it’s Steve Ruperto, so hold on a second.”

“I’m calling you to say you’re our new vice president of finance,” Dillon told Ruperto.

Ruperto said, “I’m excited for the chance to work with the student body. I campaigned for it, and I was hoping my hard work would pay off, and I’m glad that it has.”

Ruperto said he attended events sponsored by GPSA, such as a meet-and-greet with the candidates last Monday, and relied on students he knew to spread word of his campaign.

He said he didn’t have advice for other students planning to run for GPSA office in the future. “I feel like I’m the one who needs [advice],” he said.

Dillon spent the next half hour or so trying to call the remaining candidates. He ended up e-mailing Rodrigues, Zhang, Pleso and McDaniel. By noon, the GPSA website was updated, and students could see the election results.

The new GPSA officers will attend a private inauguration ceremony in the WPU Lower Lounge on April 18.

Senior Staff Writer Michael Macagnone contributed to this report.